Luton Town vs Chelsea live: Visitors make four changes to lineup for Premier League clash

Good afternoon and welcome to live coverage of Luton Town vs Chelsea, a match some fellow oldies among us might remember once featuring a riot, in 1975 to be precise, 10 years before Millwall fans went on the rampage at Kenilworth Road, which brought in the introduction of identity cards being required to follow Chelsea away.

They lost 3-0 that day in August 48 years ago, a Second Division match after both sides had been relegated the season before, but hope was at hand in the leadership of their kid captain, Butch Wilkins, and the development of a young, vibrant team that was ruined by a dispute between manager and board.

Where this current Chelsea team are on this road back to the top is hard to tell. To this eye they still look unbalanced both by injuries but also by recruitment, some of which beggars belief, not only in the fees paid but the positions for which promising players have been stockpiled leaving debilitating gaps elsewhere. To spend half a season depending on Thiago Silva as your anchor centre-back, Nicolas Jackson as a spearhead and big holes at full-back having spent a billion quid seems little short of negligent to me. And yet, they have enough talent to come good if they can find the character to go with it.

Luton have won their last two and beat Chelsea on their last top-flight visit 32 years ago. It would be glib to say they have been inspired by the plight of their captain, Tom Lockyer, who endured a heart attack during the game at Bournemouth, because they were playing well, showing the usual spirit when 1-0 up against Man City and 3-2 up against Arsenal in the two games before he fell ill, but it cannot hurt to use him as a galvanising figure, another cause to rally round. Victory today would propel them up to 16th, at least until 5pm, their first journey out of the bottom three all season.

Luton have the skill, organisation and tenacity to give Chelsea a proper battle and the result will be unusually consequential, telling us more about the two sides’ prospects than most other fixtures between sides eight places apart.